Hay making in Chorlton ............ or almost

Now here is an image which could have been so easily taken in Chorlton.

Hay Making in Furness Vale, date unknown

The picture is labelled on the reverse "Haymaking, Furness Vale" but the date and location are not recorded although the buildings in the background look familiar.

Now it is a scene which could so easily have been taken here in Chorlton,.

And given that 56% of the land here was pasture and meadowland and that some of the 40% of arable land was used for growing barley I rather think these men and boys could have so equally stepped off one of our own fields.

Man with pipe and rake

What I like about this picture is the way that George Tomlinson has isolated sections of the image  and  explains the sorts of detail most of us would pass over.

So  "the man in the centre carries a large wooden handled rake. Behind him can be seen the ownership plate on the cart. The name is Charles Saxby of Disley.  Saxby was owner of Furness Vale Printworks".

All of which puts the picture into a context and demonstrates the power of local knowledge to unlock a photograph

But as I often say it is not for me to lift another’s research so to see all of George’s comments you will have to visit the site at http://furnesshistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/haymaking.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+FurnessValeLocalHistorySociety+(FURNESS+VALE+LOCAL+HISTORY+SOCIETY)

And for those in Chorlton who wondered where we are in Furness Vale, David Easton who kindly gave me permission to use the image, says, "The location is probably Lodge Farm in Furness Vale which was owned at the time by Mr. Saxby".

Location; Furnes Vale

Picture; courtesy of the Furness Vale Local History Society

One clock tower ….. a pub ….. and 4 funny looking cars ….. 47 years ago

The picture may not win any prizes for top quality image of the year.

But then it was 1979 and I was just starting out on taking photographs and developing them using smelly photography.

Still, it is sort of a record of the Town Hall, and the Town Hall Tavern taken from King Street a very long time ago

Location; King Street

Picture; One clock tower ….. a pub ….. and 4 funny looking cars, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no. 34 ..... building the barrier

Another in the collection on that new build on the water.

Now for many the Thames Barrier will be just one of those bits of river furniture, but for those who remember it being built, here  is the first of a few taken during its construction.

For four decades it was one of the pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the mid ‘70’s which sat undisturbed in our cellar.

But all good things eventually come to light.

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

And the Barrier pictures are special, because our Theresa served in the works canteen.

Location; Charlton

Picture; Woolwich circa 1976, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Home Thoughts of Woolwich ....... no. 1 ….. the badge

Sometimes it is as simple as a badge, which after 40 years brings back a bit of history.

Having left Well Hall in 1969 for Manchester, I only visited the Tramshed on brief visits home, but it was a popular place for our Elizabeth.

Location; Woolwich

Picture; the badge, circa 1970s, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The Bella Napoli on Kennedy Street ............ where we learned to love pizza

Now I won’t be alone in having fond memories of the Bella Napoli on Kennedy Street.

Neapolitan pizza, 2017

It opened in 1973 just three years after the Isola Bella and we were there pretty much from the beginning, and carried on going throughout the 1970s.

Since then I have eaten pizza in Naples, tried the Metre Pizza, sampled Bob Amato’s special from his wood burning oven in the garden, and regularly bought slices from the Chinese takeaway in Varese.*

But it was at the Bella Napoli that I had my first pizza.

Back then it tended always to be the quattro stagioni, accompanied by a glass of wine and followed by chocolate ice cream.

I can’t remember how we came across, it probably on one of our wanders around town, and it was our place, which we shared with family and friends but remained “our place.”

It was situated on the corner of Kennedy Street and Clarence Street, you entered by a small door beside which was that illuminated glass window made up of the bottoms of wine bottles.

You went down a flight of stairs where there were a dozen tables with red table tablecloths, and a bar with I think the oven beyond that.

At the back was the entrance to the lavatories which were shared with the Isola Bella and above you there were a set of large pipes which I always assumed were to do with the ventilation.

The other end of Kennedy Street, 2017

The menu came on a large piece of white card with a picture of Vesuvius and list of half a dozen pizzas.

It was simple, cheap and friendly.

Once when I was with a works colleague who was a linguist and attempting to show off his Italian he spent a full five minutes conversing with the waiter in Italian only to discover the waiter was Spanish.

Such are the silly moments that stick in your memory and despite these and many other memories I have no pictures of either the outside or the interior.

But someone will, and in the fullness of time I hope will share them.

And it was while I was browsing the net for pictures that I came across an article from the Manchester Evening News recording the death of the owner of the Bella Napoli.

And from the Pizzeria I Decumani****

This was Evandro Barbieri who arrived in Manchester from Milan in 1958 aged 21.  He began work as a waiter in the Midland Hotel and in 1970 opened the Isola Bella, followed by a series of other Italian restaurants.**

If I look hard enough I will I suppose find out when it closed but that won’t do anything for my memories, so I don’t think I will bother.

Instead I shall think also of the cannelloni which in those red and cream ceramic dishes,and which if you weren't careful was so hot it burned your mouth.

Later long after the Bella Napoli had gone we would take each of the older kids for a special birthday meal at an Italian restaurant, each had their own favourite.

For Ben it was the Isola Bella, for Josh Bella Italia and for Saul that one on the corner of Deansgate and Blackfriars Street.

It's pity they couldn't have shared Bella Napoli.

Location; Manchester

Picture; Naples in 2017 from the collection of Saul Simpson, Kennedy Street, 2017 courtesy of Andy Robertson and a pizza from the Pizzeria I Decumani

*Pizza, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Pizza

**Tributes to Italian pioneer 'who brought pizza to Manchester', Todd Fitzgerald, December 14 2012, updated January 24 2013, http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/tributes-to-italian-pioneer-who-brought-698919

****Pizzeria I Decumani, Via dei Tribunali, 58 80138 Napoli Italy‎ +39 081 557 1309

Of floods and tourist attractions on the edge of Chorlton

Today I am on the Mersey at the edge of the township.  It is 1910 and judging by the trees we are somewhere in the summer or early autumn.

To the left is the barn of Red Bank Farm and in the distance the tower of Christ Church. It is a photograph I have used before because it perfectly captures the peaceful and benign side of the river l and yet those raised banks are the give way to what the Mersey can become.

Almost without warning it can be transformed into a heavy fast flowing roll of water that can almost over top the high banks along most of its course through Chorlton.  It has always been so and in the past it has broken over those high banks and left a wide lake.

Just what that could all mean for our farmers is there to read in the visit made to Chorlton in the June of 1847 by Alexander Somerville.

He was looking for evidence of potato blight which had destroyed the crops in Ireland and  was in Derbyshire.

And having taken in the township crossed the Mersey at Jackson’s Boat and headed on to Northenden which led him in turn to the Boat House and here

“in the absence of the potato marks, I examined the records upon a wooden post in the Kitchen of the Boat House of the highest Mersey floods since 1709.  In that year the water was a about a yard deep in the kitchen.  It was four feet six inches deep on the 21st of December 1837; it was three feet and some inches on the 31st of August, 1833.  1845 and 1828 were both years of record in the Boat House kitchen.”  

It remains a remarkable account not least because the voices of those he spoke to have been recorded in his newspaper account.

Now I have always made much of the attractions of Chorlton to the Sunday trade out from Manchester for a day in the countryside, and here Somerville did the same for Northenden and Didsbury,

“there were many sweet attractions in the meadows and the shady paths, and on the flowering sward, and by the Mersey’s waterfall, for those to hear that Manchester has many people who seek for and enjoy such delightful places of recreation.  

And I must confess that like many strangers visiting Manchester on business, or passing through it, I have been ignorant that, while it is the centre place of matchless enterprise and industry, it is surrounded with scenery of great beauty- not surpassed even by the beautiful fields, meadows, gardens, and the public pathways through them, lying around London.”

So just perhaps when he passed the banks of the river captured by our photograph he might have reflected on the two sides of our river.

Location; the Mersey

Picture; the Mersey,circa 1900 from the Lloyd Collection

Casablanca .... that film ... on the wireless today

It's the film pretty much everyone says they like.

And why not?

Set against the backdrop of the struggle against the Nazi regime, it has a superb plot, a clutch of excellent actors, screen writers and memorable scenes.  To which can be added that song and stunning cinematography and a heap of unforgettable one liners.

It is hard to select one scene that stands out, but for me one must be when the Nazi officers singing a German patriotic song are drowned out by the club's band and clientele performing "La Marseillaise".

More so because some of the actors were themselves refugees from Occupied Europe.

All of which is an introduction to theis week's In Our Time we features a discussion on the film.

And it was so good I listened to it twice.

"Recorded at the Crossed Wires Festival in Sheffield, Misha Glenny and guests discuss Casablanca, one of the greatest films from Hollywood’s Golden Era.

The film stars Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman and features the unforgettable song As Time Goes By.

Casablanca opened in November 1942 when Europe had been at war for three years and the USA for one. 

It was among Hollywood’s first major films to explain to US audiences why the war was worth fighting, and alongside this became a huge box office hit.

It was created by a cast and crew full of emigres and refugees from lands under Nazi control. They produced a movie that has authenticity as well as astonishing emotional power that continues to this day.

With Ian Christie, Emeritus Professor of Film and Media History at Birkbeck University of London, Pamela Hutchinson, Film historian and critic, Sheldon Hall, Emeritus Fellow at Sheffield Hallam University.

Producers: Simon Tillotson & Sam Peach"

Pictures; Casablanca poster, and scene from the trailer

*Casablanca, In Our Time, BBC Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00325cd